Homework assignments for Word

Practice assignments are available for those people taking the Microsoft Word series of classed at http://www.box.net.

Week 10: #23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning...

I am afraid that it is close to being the end, although I had hoped that it would be the beginning of something great.

I found the photo sites to be very interesting. I have always used Photoshop elements to edit my pictures. It works great, but the learning curve is steep. Most of the online sites were much more user friendly and I was able to do the basic photo fixes that most people need. The special effects available were great for adding zip to the pictures.

I would like to start using a blog or similar website, perhaps a wiki of some sort, to communicate with the people who take my computer classes. I would like to learn more about how (within the confines of the HCPL system) to set up a site on the web where I can post materials and have them available to people to download.

I did not find much of the material covered in the program to be of interest to me or to be very useful. I was familiar with most of it, but just never saw a reason to use it, and for the most part still don’t. After completing the program, I understand why the customers are so frustrated with technology. Some of it does not work at all, and most of the others are so picky that a minor mistake or two can sabotage the entire exercise. If you are a mature (over 40) customer, it is hard to jump and get started. I can now see why many of them get frustrated and just keep doing it the same old way.

Week 9:#22 Downloadable Media

The HCPL digital site had a fair selection of audio books in a variety of formats (OverDrive, Adobe PDF, and Mobipocket). The video selection and music selections were somewhat more limited. The free sites were largely limited to books that were in the public domain. This limited the selection available greatly. The download digital media guided tour on the Overdrive site was very informative. I found a few book that I would like to check out, (The Clone Wars by Karen Traviss, and Dark Empire I and II by Tom Veitch) but I would not check out the audio book. The print version is much more to my taste. If I commuted to downtown (as my wife does) I would consider listening to audio books, but nothing beats the old fashion print book for reading pleasure.

Week 9:#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts

I found the process of locating a podcast to be very frustrating. The podcast directories Podcast.net and Yahoo Podcasts have moved or no longer exist. Podcast Alley had a few interesting items, but it was hardly worth the trouble to sort through the hundreds of podcasts to find the half dozen or so that were of interest, or were authoritative. Adding the RSS feed to my Bloglines account was a straightforward process, however locating an appropriate library blog was another matter. I finally found one that gave book reviews. Honestly, I did not find much that I would find useful to me or the customers. In short, I just don't like Blogs.

Week #19: #20 Discover YouTube

The site is well organized, interesting, visually attractive, and easy to navigate. It has a large selection of videos and they are easy to locate. The fly in the ointment, is that if you do not have a fast connection, the videos do a lot of buffering. I also would hesitate to use some of the material at work as I am not sure what the source is (copyright issues). I liked the Killer Tortoise video. It was cute, informative, and it illustrates how a common person with little equipment can create an interesting video. Some of the videos were a little risqué for general viewing. The library website could use some more visual impact, a little more humor, and the organization could be improved.

Week 8: #19 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

Zoho like most of the other online applications is straight forward and easy to use, but somewhat limited in the features offered. I found the limited number of fonts (and font sizes) to be frustrating. For simple document that is not of a sensitive nature they are quit sufficient. I may have missed it, but I could not find a way to export ther doucment as a web page. For more complex documents I would use Word, Word Perfect, Lotus Word Pro or a similar commercial program. It also becomes a problem working online when you have a slow connection (I am on dial up at home). I am not totally comfortable with my documents being stored on line where I do not have control of them. It is nice to have access to them from any computer with internet access, but I am not sure is worth the risk.

Week 8: #18 Social Networking: Making friends in the comfort of your own home

I looked at MySpace, Ning, Yahoo!360, Catster and Dogster. I wanted to look at Facebook, but it required me to register, and I was not willing. They looked like a group of clones. I got boored quickly looking at the sites. They appear to consist of the minutiae of people’s lives (or even worse their pet’s lives), that only a close friend or relative would appreciate. I guess I am not of the age group to appreciate the social networking phenomenon. I am not one who is willing to share intimate details of my life with every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to place me under a microscope and examine me. If I want to make friends, I don’t think that the social networking site is the appropriate way to do it.

Week 7: #17 Blog About Technology

I find that many people who are doing technology are great at doing the technology, but are very poor at telling others how to do it, or even why it would be worth the trouble. I have decided that a blog would be a great way to communicate with the people who take classes at the library. It would give me chance to post materials on line where they could access them, and they would be able to comment on the materials and the class. As soon as I finish the iHCPL program, I am going to start working on my library blog. Having taught distance learning classes using WebCt, I think it will be fairly easy to organize a blog to do many of the same functions. In any event it will be great fun learning the ins and outs of blogging.

Week #7 task #16 "So what's in a wiki?"

I was not sure what I was supposed to have learned after I had completed this assignment. The concept of a wiki is great, but I needed more structure to the assignment. The SJCPL Subject Guidelines was interesting, but limited in scope. It also was not easy to use. Part of the problem was that it required a connection that was much faster and reliable than the one I had available.

The Book Lovers wiki begs the question: “Why?” It did not appear to be well used, and it was boring. The Library Success: a Best Practices Wiki was somewhat better. Although it was still rather dull, it was well laid out, easy to negotiate, and had some good content.

I can see a wiki used to enhance the programming at a library. Handouts and explanatory materials could be stored on the wiki and downloaded by anyone who was interested. Comment could be made, and it would be a great avenue for discussion.

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

Rick Anderson’s article on Away from the “icebergs” was the most interesting of the lot. Most of the articles were reminiscent of articles written by university professors who have to “publish or perish”. Mr. Anderson put forth 3 interesting ideas: The “just in case” collection (he does not like it), Reliance on user education (he doesn’t think we can do it), and The “come to us” model of library service (he appears to believe that if we build it they will not come).

I think we still need a large collection of hard copy books. None of the new technologies has the convenience of a book. A book is portable, easier to read than a computer or PDA screen, and cheaper than the new technologies I have seen. I don’t know what his library is doing wrong if there has been a 55% drop in circulation.

I think that libraries need to concentrate more on user education not less. Yes, the interfaces need to be improved, and accessing information needs to be easier, but most community library users still want to check out the latest Oprah book. The majority of the users don’t want to do extensive research. We need to make the effort to reach the few who do need to do research, but let us not let “the tail wag the dog”.

In my opinion the “come to us” model of library service is still very valid. The internet has its uses, but nothing beats going to a brick and mortar establishment (be it a store or a library) where you can touch the merchandise.

I found it odd that he mentioned the German term zeitgeist. In the field of education the teachers used a similar term English phrase “this year’s great idea”. We used it to describe the latest educational trends that were being pushed by the administration. They usually had no staying power, and appeared to be something that someone dreamed up to justify their administrative job. I am afraid that most (but not all) of Library 2.0 will be like the education trends. Temporary.

ACTIVITY 14 TECHORATI

Searching for Learning 2.0 on blog posts, tags and blog directories yielded vastly different results (~500 to over 8000). I was surprised at the variety of postings. To paraphrase an old saying “Any fool can post anything, about anything, and most fools do.” Some of the postings were of excellent quality and very informative. Some of them were off the wall, and others were biased and in some cases out and out lies. I will probably use this site if I need to locate a blog on a specific topic, but I am tired of sifting through bushels of chaff to find a few grains of wheat.

ACTIVITY 13 TAGGING

I found the del.icio.us software to be of little use. The tutorial video was hard to understand. Part of the problem was the connection speed (<100 kbps) and part of it was the monotone voice and rambling of the speaker. She assumed that the listener was a graduate student familiar with the software and that she was preaching to the choir. The slackerman link showed no results for the habits of highly successful del.icio.us users, and the beelerspace.com posting was hard to follow. It was almost like a stream of consciousness conversation with minute details that added little.

I can see advantages to using tagging, if you were someone doing research and sharing it with others working on the same research team. I would not use it as I am uncomfortable revealing that much information to the entire web.

WEEK #5 TASK 12 The Library ELF

Library ELF was a pleasure to use. I need a service like the ELF. I never seem to get the mail that I have a book due. As I age, I need more and more frequent reminders. It was easy to use. I was able to setup an account in a matter of minutes. It remains to be seen, if it will actually deliver the information, but I have high hopes. This is one of the most useful applications that I have seen in iHCPL.

WEEK 5 TASK #11LibraryThing

Well written site. The process of creating the account was straight forward and very simple (although I would have appreciated it if the password would have been verified). Adding books was simple using the search feature, and I was glad to see that they could be entered manually since I have some books that are not listed on the book websites. For those interested, my library can be located at: http://www.librarything.com/home/dawhip .

WEEK 5 TASK #10 Images, Illustrations, Art?

Most of the generators that I found were not easy to use. Some of them I could not even get to load. It might have something to do with the network that I am using. Some of the machines are connecting at 10 Kilobits. I suppose that if you were willing to pay, you would have access to some of the premium products. Although it is not easy to use (it sometimes locks up) the generator at http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/ has some interesting graphics. I can use them in some of my presentations and some of them might work well to hand interest to handouts. Avatars from Yahoo was very simple to use, but I could not locate an easy way to export it to other applications. Meez was kind of interesting. I created an avatar and was able to export it to other applications. If I had a large quantity of free time, I would try to locate some other useful applications, but I am not sure it is worth investing the time for an uncertain outcome.

WEEK 4 TASK #9 In search of a few good blogs.

I found most of the blog search tools to be hard to use. If you do not have a fast connection, you will timeout before you can go anywhere. Syndica8 was useful. It was somewhat cumbersome to use, but once I spent some time working with it, I was able to locate a few useful blogs. I never got Feedster to do anything. Technorati was easy to use, but did not offer a wide variety of blogs on most of the topics that I was interested in. Truthfully, the easiest way I have found to locate blogs relevant to my interests is to go to Google and do a search on “whatever subject I am interested in” blog. This usually gives me an extensive list of blogs on the given subject

WEEK 4 TASK #8 RSS

The RSS exercises were interesting. I noticed that most of the participants in iHCPL did not have anyone subscribing to their blog. I signed up for a few; I can only hope that they are active, and I get something from the feeds. The instructions were specific enough that I could follow them, but general enough that I was able to subscribe to some blogs that were arranged differently from the ones in the example. I can see how the RSS could be useful to someone who depends on the Web for most of their information. It could be a real time saver, not having to go to 10 different sites. It would also be helpful to someone who has a group of friends that blog on a regular basis. One stop shopping for all the daily gossip.

WEEK 3 TASK #7 Kylie

Kylie
Originally uploaded by Tomball David

This photo was edited using Picnik. It was cropped and the critter eye was removed.

WEEK 3 TASK #6 Random thoughts on Tripper Map

Tripper map would be a good way to share your vacation photos with friends and family. It appears to be simple enough to use with little instruction, but powerful enough to off some flexibility. However I doubt that anyone would be interested in my travels to the various botanical gardens that I like to visit, so I doubt that I will be using the software in the near future.

WEEK 3 TASK #5 Kylie

DSCN2195 (Medium)
Originally uploaded by Tomball David

This is Kylie with a bad case of critter eye. You will notice that the other photo similar to this one has the critter eye removed and has been cropped. Thank goodness for Picnik.

Safety and privacy in cyberspace

The current laws concerning privacy in cyberspace are inadequate. This is a classic example of technology out pacing society’s ability to regulate it. Currently the concept of privacy online is poorly defined. We never who is collection information about us, or how it will be used. Once something gets into the cloud, it has a life of its own. My philosophy is to give out as little information as possible.

There is no such thing as absolute safety, much less absolute online safety. Life is inherently unsafe. You have to realize that the safer something is, the less freedom it offers. If I venture online, I have to accept the fact that I will not always be safe, and it is my responsibility to watch out for myself.

Learning Habits

When I start examining my learning habits, I have a hard time being objective. If I focus only on my strengths, I will make little progress because many times my weaknesses will sabotage my strengths. Therefore, I need to spend a good deal time compensating for my weaknesses. Motivation is a hard concept. If one does not see a practical purpose for the activity, it is very hard to keep focused. On the subject of setting goals, setting goals is easy; setting reasonable and effective goals is much harder. Organization is a difficult task. However without it I spend most of my time spinning my wheels. Only time will tell what will be hard and what will be easy in this task.

Kylie

Kylie
Originally uploaded by Tomball David

Kylie finally wore herself out.

Paddie O'Dog

Paddie O'Dog
Originally uploaded by Tomball David

This looks like a dog's life. I wish I had nothing to do but to sleep all day.

Zoe 1

Zoe 1
Originally uploaded by Tomball David

Say hello to Zoe.

Obscure Comments

Not quite sure what I am doing. The instructions so far are a little vague. I guess I will just wander around the iHCPL materials until I figure out what to do.